1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a specimen preprocessing/transport apparatus for aliquoting blood serum from test tubes stored with a specimen such as blood, dispensing the serum to sample cups, and loading it into an analyzer.
2. Description of the Related Art
A specimen preprocessing/transport apparatus is described in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2002-14109 as an example of a known system for loading blood serum from test tubes stored with a specimen, such as blood, into an analyzer. The apparatus described in this patent document comprises a parent-specimen loading unit, an available area detection unit, a stopper removing unit, and a child-specimen container supply unit. The parent-specimen loading unit is located on a specimen operating surface of a desk-type housing. The available area detection unit detects available areas for parent specimens that are fed by the parent-specimen loading unit. The stopper removing unit serves to remove stoppers from specimen containers that contain the parent specimens. The child-specimen container supply unit supplies empty specimen containers for child specimens.
The specimen preprocessing/transport apparatus further comprises a label issuing unit, a dispensing tip supply unit, and a dispensing unit. The label issuing unit prepares identification labels and sticks them on the child-specimen containers supplied from the child-specimen container supply unit. The dispensing tip supply unit supplies disposable dispensing tips. The dispensing unit aliquots the parent specimens in the available areas in the parent-specimen containers, with their stoppers removed by the stopper removing unit, through the dispensing tips supplied from the dispensing tip supply unit and mounted in place. Thereafter, the dispensing unit performs dispensing to the child-specimen containers having the identification labels thereon. The specimen preprocessing/transport apparatus additionally comprises a child-specimen unloading unit and a parent-specimen container unloading unit. The child-specimen unloading unit unloads the child specimens dispensed by the dispensing unit. The parent-specimen container unloading unit unloads the parent-specimen containers after the aliquoting operation.
Thus, a series of processing operations, including the specimen loading and unloading, label issuance, dispensing, etc., is performed entirely automatically, so that there is no possibility of an operator touching the specimens. In consequence, specimen inspection and preprocessing can be automatically executed with a very practical countermeasure against infection.
According to the prior art technique described above, however, complicated parent and child specimen transport units are necessary, and the specimens are loaded into and unloaded one by one from parent and child specimen transport racks, so that the processing efficiency is poor.
The present invention has been made in consideration of these circumstances, and its object is to provide a specimen preprocessing/transport apparatus, in which specimens in specimen-filled test tubes that are transported on a test tube transport path can be efficiently aliquoted and dispensed to sample cups on a rack transport path by an aliquoting/dispensing device located in the middle of the test tube transport path, the respective configurations of the transport paths for the specimen-filled test tubes and the sample cup racks can be simplified, and the processing efficiency can be improved.